on talking about pain

It is currently 2am. I have to wake up in exactly 4 hours for work, and honestly, this is hilarious to me. I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d try to write to you. 

I wish we could hangout, ya know. I’m a barista now. I can get you free coffee.

Just something to think about. 

I’ve been having a lot of anxiety attacks lately, which is why I can’t sleep. When people ask me what this feels like, I tell them, like a migraine. 

If you’ve had migraines, you know that you can lose parts of your vision, or that your vision can be altered in a big way–tunnel vision, difference in color or texture, spots appearing–all sorts of fun. And it tends to be different for everyone. 

If you ask someone to describe this sensation–what it feels like to have their vision distorted in this way–the answers you’ll get will be analogous. Like, they have a hard time describing something so personally abstracted, so they’ll compare this feeling to a different one. 

And this is true of all pain to some extent. 

“What does the pain feel like?” Is the question we ask. “What is it like?” That’s the way we understand. That’s the way we empathize. “Relate it to something that I’ve felt.” 

“It feels like I’m being poked.” 

“It feels like a punch to the gut.” 

But how does it feel to have your vision distorted in a way that only you can see? I could tell you how it looks–like a black dot in the middle of my field of vision. I could tell you it’s disorienting. But still, this feels shallow. It’s hard to get at with words. Even analogy. 

I’ll give it a shot anyway. (Don’t I always?)

It’s like a strobe light in an otherwise dark room. You see parts of what’s there–what’s true–but instead of this being helpful, it makes it harder to move. 

You start to wish everything was dark, because seeing nothing would be better than this half truth.

Seeing part and not the whole, and feeling helpless as to which parts you see and when, is how an anxiety attack feels to me. It’s like losing part of your vision, over and over. The light doesn’t help–it can’t because there’s not enough of it. 

When I was maybe 11 or 12, I went to a haunted house with my parents and sister. It was exactly what you’d expect (people jumping out, weird, chainsaw wielding bearded guys) except for the last room. The last room was walled with mirrors, filled with smoke, and completely dark apart from a single, incredibly bright strobe light. 

I could not breathe–I could not see to move. I let go of my mom and sister, who until that point I had been using as a chainsaw shield, so that I could attempt to feel my way out, but I couldn’t find a wall to hold onto. 

What I later discovered was that the way back to the previous room, and the only way out, only opened from the outside. We could not be let out from inside.

We were at the mercy of whoever was standing guard. We were trapped until someone let us out, but after a few minutes, they would. 

I didn’t know this at the time—that waiting was all I needed to do. So instead I continued to grope for a wall, eyes open, becoming even more afraid and dizzy and lost. 

The solution, I guess, would have been to close my eyes–it would have been to wait. Trust that it would end, rely on what I knew with certainty to be true. What I could feel.

This is why we hold ice, or push hard against a wall when we feel we are dissociating. This is why we shake our heads, hands, legs, feet, whatever (well maybe not whatever) when we’re having intrusive thoughts.

We are trying to hold on to what is certain about our experience–what is real without having to double check. We need to anchor, somehow.

Wishing for the dark hasn’t done me any good–It’s its own kind of horror. Apathy is only nice in theory. 

Eventually, after enough times through the horrible, mirrored room, I’ll learn that the door will open. 

I’ll never get my 20 bucks back though. Shame.

I love you.

Always will.

X. Allison